


Stolen Penguin

by Beth Harker (Beth_Harker)



Category: Newsies (1992)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-06
Updated: 2013-05-06
Packaged: 2019-09-27 21:35:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17169830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beth_Harker/pseuds/Beth%20Harker
Summary: Swifty steals a baby penguin and brings it back to the lodging house, where the newsies are left to figure out what to do with their new feathered friend.





	Stolen Penguin

The wooden crate had come from the harbor. Guarded by three men in green suits, it had seemed like a challenge to Swifty. The morning had been bright, people had been everywhere, and one of the men had had the longest mustache ever seen by Swifty the Rake. The most tempting thing about the box had been the way that it was right out there in the open, where anybody could see him take it. One would have to be an idiot not to notice a teenage boy with a stack of papers and a newsboy’s cap making off with what was evidently precious cargo.

Spot Conlon had once informed all the boys that Manhattan was absolutely teeming with idiots. ‘Idiots, imbeciles, and dumbasses of every kind’ was how he’d put it. The Mouth, armed with a thesaurus which he seemed to regard as the source of all wisdom, had asked Spot if he’d needed any more synonyms. Spot had laughed at him. Swifty had gotten a hold of the thesaurus a couple of days later and stowed it under his bed. He felt kind of bad about that, since David was an okay enough guy, but it wasn’t like he’d taken something important from him like food or money. He would never do that to another newsie. Anyway, he didn’t care about David’s stupid thesaurus and what he’d say to him if he ever got found out, even if he’d had a bad dream about just that the night before (dream David was a lot more inclined to curse the firstborn children of those who betrayed him than his real life counterpart, or at least Swifty hoped so, not that he’d ever do something as stupid as go and have kids anyway.). What really mattered was Spot, and how if he was right about Manhattan generally being populated with stupid people, then maybe Swifty could steal the box.

And Swifty… well, he had another trick up his sleeve, one that he’d noticed a long time ago and figured he’d better use, since it wasn’t like he had a lot of other advantages in life. Sometimes people looked through him. They’d see him, start to stare, and then remember that it was rude to gawk at him like he was some kind of exotic animal in a cage. Then they’d look away so aggressively that it wouldn’t matter what kind of strange stunts he pulled. It was like in a dream, when your brain couldn’t make sense of the guy with three eyes or Davey gaining magic powers, so your brain just told you it wasn’t happening and morphed the scene into something you could kind of accept. 

Long story short, Swifty managed to steal the box and get it back to the lodging house, where he might have thrown it under the bed next to David’s thesaurus, if it hadn’t been moving.

Something inside the box was trying to get out.

This was interesting. Swifty hadn’t bargained on living cargo. He wondered if it would be a tiger. Tigers, from what little he knew about them, were just about the fiercest and most spectacular creatures ever. He imagined walking down the street with a tiger. Hell, he could train it, and then he could get famous and never have to worry about money again. His smile widened. A few of the other boys were already crowding around, curious to see what was in the box. 

“Lift anything good this time?” Snitch asked. Snitch always tried to be real friendly to Swifty.

“What’ve you got?” Asked Snipeshooter. 

“Come on,” said Race, pushing past a few of the other boys to get a look. “What’s in the box?” 

“A tiger,” Swifty said, crouching down next to the box and stroking it lightly. Jack, who had been involved in some kind of game that consisted mostly of trying to grab David’s face and make him look at things that weren’t books, stopped what he was doing to lean over his bunk and glance down at Swifty. Everybody was looking at Swifty now. He lived for moments like this. 

“Sure, a tiger,” David said, shifting position so his legs dangled down from the bunk. He was also staring at Swifty and his box.

“It’s moving ain’t it?” Swifty pointed out. “And it’s got ‘central park zoo’ written right here on the front. If this ain’t a tiger I don’t know what is.” 

“Does it say anything on the box about it being a tiger? Or about it being dangerous? A box with a tiger would probably say something along the lines of, ‘Caution: May bite’.” David gave Swifty a look as if he was the high and mighty expert of all things tiger related. Then again, David always looked like that, and Swifty didn’t hold it against him any. Outward appearances weren’t everything, and people couldn’t always help the way they looked.

“Shut up Dave, if he says it’s a tiger, it’s a tiger.” 

“Thanks Skittery.” Swifty knew that he could always count on Skittery to back him up. 

The box shook again. 

“Just one thing,” Skittery added, his eyes narrowing like he was trying to beat David in the annual lodging house looking skeptical competition. 

“Yeah?” Swifty narrowed his eyes right back at him. 

“Nothin’. I just thought tigers were ‘sposed to be big. I’ve seen some rats bigger than that box.” 

Tumbler looked at Skittery, has face full of alarm. “Rats? Bigger than that box? Actual rats? Like the kind that eat you?”

“They only eat boys who start smoking before they reach fourteen.”

“And boys who get given chocolate and don’t share it. You said…”

Swifty gave the box a good shake. Something inside it shook back. It got people paying attention to him again, which is what he wanted.

“I bet it’s a baby tiger,” said Mush.

That made sense to Swifty. “’Course it is. I wouldn’t go and steal a grown tiger. I gotta start with a little one, so’s I can train it.” 

“Good luck training it if it gets asphyxiated in that little box you got it in,” said Skittery.

“Or if it gets a concussion from you shaking it around like that,” David added. “That can’t be good for it, whatever it is.”

“Let’s see this baby tiger of yours.” Jack said, hopping down from his bunk. Not even Jack could resist the lure of a baby tiger. 

Swifty circled the box, looking for the best way to open it. It was all nailed up, just the way you’d expect a box holding a man-eating baby predator to be. 

“I’ll tell Kloppman we need to borrow his saw,” said Blink. 

“Send Dave,” Jack suggested. “Kloppman won’t suspect him of being involved in stealing nothin’” 

“Because I’m not.” 

Jack nodded persuasively, “Neither am I. Let’s go. I’ll keep you company.”

By the time Jack and David got back with the saw, the thing inside the box was shaking as if desperate to be free, and making some of the most untigerlike sounds Swifty had ever heard. Even so, he held out hope. 

Swifty started the sawing slowly. He didn’t want to kill whatever was inside the box. He was a thief, after all, not a murderer. It seemed like it would be slow going at first, but then all of a sudden the left side fell open and a tiny ball of fluff waddled out.

It was chubby. It was short. It had a puffy gray tummy and black and white head, ending in a stubby little beak. Its beady black eyes had an expression of uncomprehending confusion that would make any self-respecting tiger hang its head in shame. That’s because it wasn’t a tiger. It was a bird. A —

“Is that a penguin,” David Jacobs asked.

The thing in the box was a penguin. An adorable, flightless, frightened bundle of baby penguin.

 

————-

 

Two hours later, and Swifty found himself sitting shoulder to shoulder with Mush on the floor of the lodging house, watching while Mush fed his penguin sardines out of a can. Mush was great like that. Skittery and David had both insisted that penguins only liked to eat fish, and the boys had pooled their money to buy super for their new friend, with Mush footing most of the bill. Mush had also been the one who had run out to buy the fish, and come to the conclusion that he ought to buy the little kind, so they’d be easier for the penguin to swallow.

Swifty was glad that Mush had taken on feeding duty. He didn’t want his hands to smell like fish. He’d hung out around the docks some, but he didn’t want to smell like a dock worker. 

“Do you want the penguin?” Swifty asked Mush. 

“Really? You’d give me your penguin?” Mush asked, looking like Swifty had offered to give him a million dollars instead of a useless bird that wasn’t even a tiger.

“I’ll sell it to you for four cents,” Swifty offered, then Mush’s face fell, and Swifty remembered that Mush had spent most of his money buying sardines for the penguin to eat. “We can set up a payment plan,” Swifty offered. “One cent a day till the penguin’s paid for. I won’t even take any until tomorrow, after you’re done selling.” 

“That’s not fair,” David interjected. 

“What’s not fair about it?” asked Skittery. “Those are good terms. Generous. Penguins are worth a lot of money. We gotta get them imported. Can’t find one of them just anywhere. I bet he cost the zoo a ton of money.”

“We can teach it how to sell papes,” Blink suggested. “Think how many people’ll line up to buy papers from a penguin. We can name him Pete! Pete the Paper Selling Penguin!” 

“Pete the Unparalleled Paper Selling Penguin,” Skittery amended. 

“I think I heard something about Pete,” said Mush, stroking the penguin’s fuzzy black head. “Didn’t he pick a peck of pickled peppers or somethin’? Is that right Petey? Do you like pickled peppers? No you don’t. You likes fish. That’s right. That’s what you likes.”

“Penguins need things that we don’t have. A lot of things. Like snow and ice, and water to swim in. Whole oceans of water to swim in. They need fish. Mush just wiped out his savings buying one can of sardines.” David folded his arms. 

“I doubt he’ll eat more than Tumbler,” Skittery countered.

“Hey!”

“Well, he won’t.” 

“He’s a penguin,” David said, as if that settled everything. “He’s supposed to live in the South Pole, not the Newsboys’ Lodging House on Duane Street.” 

Mush continued to stroke the penguin’s head, but his smile had faded somewhat. “You think he’ll die if we keep him here?” He asked. 

David nodded. 

“Even if we works real hard and feeds him real well?” 

David slid down from Jack’s bunk so that he could put a hand on Mush’s shoulder. “We’re not doing him any favors, keeping him cooped up in here. It’s not like he’d go unnoticed, either. There are probably people all over the city looking for him.” 

Jack followed David’s movements with his eyes. “Well, maybe they just oughta leave the poor guy alone, ‘stead of hunting him down like an animal.” 

Swifty had begun to give up hope of getting his four cents. Jack didn’t always agree with everything David said, but he did so pretty damn often. Hearing Jack speak though…. Well, not only did Jack have a point, but him being on Swifty’s side gave him a chance.

“See, I for one wouldn’t turn Pete into the zoo anymore than I’d turn you into the Refuge.” Swifty said boldly.

“It’s not the same! The zoo has money. They have resources.” David faltered a little bit. “It’s not ideal. It’s pretty bad, actually. They shouldn’t have brought him over here at all, but the fact still stands that he is here and we can’t take care of him.” 

“There ain’t a lot of penguins in New York,” Swifty said. In truth, he didn’t know if there were a lot of penguins in New York, but he guessed that there weren’t, since he’d never seen any. “How’d you like to be one of the only penguins in this whole stinkin’ city, and spend your days stuck in a cage or doing so’s rich folks can stare at you?”

“And pat themselves on the back because you got some fish to eat, and they taught you a couple of tricks,” Skittery added. 

David sighed. 

“Maybe we can bring him back to the South Pole?” Mush suggested. 

David sighed even louder. Mush was looking straight at him.

“It’s impractical. We don’t know the first thing about how we’d go about sending a baby penguin back to the South Pole.”

“We could learn,” Jack said. He came closer to David, tapping him on the side of the head. “Come on, Dave. Don’t ya know that’s what we keep you around for?”

“I could steal a ship,” Swifty added. He’d never stolen a ship before, but if he could steal a penguin, then hijacking a boat couldn’t be that far out of his reach. 

“Wouldn’t that be compounding the problem a little?” David asked. “Besides, what do we know about ships?” 

It took David a moment, but gradually he seemed to begin to come aware of the fact that nearly everybody was staring at him. “Why would I know anything about ships?”

“You go to school, don’t you?” Skittery asked. “What? Don’t they teach you anything useful at this school of yours?” 

David stared at Skittery for a second as if slightly alarmed, then sat down next to Mush. “It would be nice if they did,” he muttered. 

———

In the end, it was Kloppman who put an end to the whole penguin situation. Normally he didn’t stop by the bunks in the evenings, but normally boys were in and out until it was time to lock up, and even after. The Pete the Penguin had served as a kind of a trap for newsies – boys who came into bunk room didn’t come out. Even David, who could have theoretically used home and dinner as an excuse to dodge, could still be found hanging around on the floor of the lodging house pretending to do his Latin homework well into the evening. That was why eventually Kloppman had to come up and check on them. 

He took one look at the room, shook his wrinkled head, and clicked his tongue at them all. He didn’t seem surprised to find a baby penguin wandering around the lodging house so much as bemused.

“He flew in the window,” Jack offered weakly.

“The window,” Kloppman muttered. “The window. Never mind. See to it that he doesn’t fly out the window. I’ll get the zoo on the phone.” 

Privately Swifty thought that old Kloppman wouldn’t be so resigned to sending Pete away if he’d been there for the last couple of hours. Maybe he felt some relief that Kloppman was going to take care of the whole situation, so he wouldn’t go to jail for stealing Pete, or have to feel like it was his fault that Pete was going back to the jail he’d been stolen from, but mostly he felt kind of sorry for the little guy.

The old man made his way out of the room, apparently oblivious to the stricken faces around him, though if there was one thing that everybody knew, it was that Kloppman was never as oblivious as he seemed to be. 

 

This was shown an hour later, when Kloppman came back, claiming that the penguin’s handlers needed one of the boys to ride back to the zoo with them, to help keep the animal calm along the way.

Mush was the first to volunteer. 

“It ain’t so bad,” Mush reported back later that day. 

“Is it good?” David asked. 

Mush frowned, and shook his head. “Maybe I ain’t never been to the South Pole, but it’s gotta be a lot bigger than the central park zoo.” 

“Are there other penguins?” Swifty asked. 

“Two of ‘em.” 

“At least he’ll have friends,” said Jack. “Not that it changes a lot, but it’s better than nothing. And if the zookeepers let him do what he wants… it still ain’t good…”

“Maybe we could do something,” David suggested.

“Thought you said you didn’t know how to sail a ship,” was Jack’s reply.

“That’s not what I meant.” 

————–

Stealing a ship.

It was days before Swifty could get that out of his mind, even for a minute. 

He could steal a ship. He could steal a ship, and be a ship’s captain, and sail it all over the world. They didn’t teach sailing in schools, which meant that it was the kind of skill that one was supposed to learn outside in the world, which was exactly where Swifty was. 

He’d heard about things too. Swashbuckling and searching for buried treasure. Getting a ship seemed like the way to go. If he could just get a ship…

… the other boys didn’t talk much about getting ships. Mush wanted a penguin, but first he wanted an icehouse and an endless supply of fresh fish. 

David and Jack wanted a letter writing campaign and large scale zoo reforms. 

Swifty wished them luck. He wished himself luck, too. He’d need it if he was going to get his ship.


End file.
